Braintrust- Requiem

by Marc Stiegler

  Fan bobbed her head up and down with impotent fury. “Exactly! Nothing could have gone wrong, and then nothing went right! Get clear on this, Guang. This is the BrainTrust, where nothing is ever as simple as it seems, nor as hopeless as it appears.”

  Guang shrugged it off. “Relax. If things start to go bad, we pull out of the Alliance. The Americans are intent on drawing first blood, and the Russians have some sort of pregame operation they care about more than the actual sinking of the ships. Odds are we won’t even be involved until the final cleanup of the corpses.”

  Fan had closed her eyes and calmed herself. “I hope so.” She gave him a parting glare. “Gotta go.”

  “But we haven’t discussed the dinner plans I have for you.”

  With that, she’d hung up.

  Now, sitting here with her gelato, she knew the next phone call she had to make. She rang up Qi Ru to ask for financial advice, and he referred her to Keenan Stull on the BrainTrust.

  On the wallscreen, Keenan Stull gave her a delighted smile. “Standing Member Liu Fan Hui. I’ve been hoping for some time to make your acquaintance. How can I help you?”

  Fan was still too angry to put a happy face on her expression. “Qi Ru tells me you can help me. I would like to identify the Chinese companies that will have the most to gain and the most to lose if the BrainTrust wins the upcoming battle. I’m thinking of taking a combination of long and short positions.”

  Keenan’s smile turned sharklike. “Excellent! As it happens, I’m constructing a standard portfolio for our customers looking at the same future. Of course, I’m seeking opportunities worldwide, not just in China.” He twitched his nose. “I’m happy to construct a custom portfolio for you, although we should talk through a couple of different possible approaches. If you are quite confident and you really want to maximize your profits, instead of long and short positions, you should consider the options markets. Puts and calls are the real opportunities here.”

  Ted Simpson stood quietly in the embarkation line in the passenger terminal on the Heinlein, waiting to board the Global Express ship heading for the Prometheus archipelago.

  A female voice shouted, “Ted? Ted!”

  He turned to see Gina Toscano waving at him. “Gina!”

  Gina slid past everyone to stand beside him. “I thought you’d be one of the people staying to defend the ships.”

  Ted allowed his puzzlement to show. “So did I. But Ping called me.”

  Gina looked bemused as well. “The empress? I’d expect her to be coming here, not calling you away.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But I bet she’s got something up her sleeve. She promised me we’d both be back in time for the fireworks.” A look of astonishment passed over his face. “But she says she wants my help first with preparations.” He tried to mimic Ping’s voice without much success. “Big preparations. You’ll love it.” Ted shrugged.

  Gina was mystified. “Ping? Preparations? I thought she was a ‘let’s charge in and improvise’ kind of gal.”

  Ted blinked. “Maybe being an empress has changed her.”

  Gina nodded thoughtfully. “Probably a good thing.”

  Ted changed the topic. “What about Matt? I can’t think of much help he can be in the battle. You’re here alone?”

  Gina swiveled her head. “He’s here somewhere.” She blew out a sound of disgust. “He’s staying, for no good reason I can find. But he’s escorting me to the ship to make sure I’m gone.” She pointed. “There he is.”

  She turned back to Ted. “So, you’re coming back?”

  Ted nodded.

  Gina straightened her shoulders. “Then I’m damn well staying.” She marched off to confront her husband.

  Ted turned back to the spaceship. Preparation. What could Ping have in mind?

  Commodore Kung, standing in the Combat Information Center of his flagship, the destroyer Xiamen, watched the monitors as his three-ship task force pulled into Lagos Harbor. He curled his lip as his helmsman carefully navigated through the channel surrounded by the tangles of the skeletal debris of the city.

  He spotted a colonel standing on the dock, awaiting him. Colonel Suen, he presumed.

  As he came down the gangway, the colonel intercepted him and introduced himself. Kung gave him a curt nod of the head.

  As Kung’s cool disregard continued, Colonel Suen became visibly irritated. “Please let me brief you on the situation here and how it developed.”

  Kung flicked a nonexistent speck off his shoulder. “I have everything I need, thank you. The disgraceful defeat of our land forces holds little interest for me.”

  Suen clenched his fists and unclenched them. “You might want to look closely at the way the BrainTrust develops and evolves strategies. At that level, everything here is relevant to your mission. They’ll try to outwit you the same way.”

  “I hardly think they can attack my supply lines with goats. I don’t need supply lines, and both goats and hornets are, I believe, ill-suited to the needs of naval combat.”

  Wu Bolin came running up and bowed. “Commodore, we are delighted to have you here. Is there anything we can get for you, any service we can perform?”

  Kung raised an eyebrow. “Well, I certainly don’t want any fuel. We topped off before we came around the Cape.” He sighed. “I have authorized my seamen to come ashore in shifts to get a local meal.” He had been reluctant to do even that. Could the BrainTrust have tainted the local food stores the way they sabotaged the fuel depot?

  But the food on the Xiamen was barely edible, in his estimation, so while he wished he could slip his whole fleet into a giant condom for the duration of their stay in this harbor, even he had to admit it wasn’t practical. He figured that if the BrainTrust had done something to the food, the army grunts would have already experienced the results. His people were sort of safe, hopefully.

  He continued to answer Wu’s question. “We need nothing besides a good meal.” He frowned at the swamp, then turned his eyes yearningly to the clean open sea. “We’ll be gone in just a couple of days if everyone sticks to the timetable. Then we’ll be off to the Prometheus archipelago. It’ll take an hour or so to destroy those ships, then we’ll head home.”

  Fan lowered the volume on the phone as Guang whined louder. “The Renhai has already been assigned to the Open Seas Fleet, along with every other ship in the Pacific. Do you really want me to go back and take it away from Admiral Fang?”

  Fan observed silently that Guang took things away from people every day. This was his way of saying he didn’t want to. "Guang, the Renhai is the oldest cruiser still in service. Powerful as it is, it’s a flyspeck compared to the might of our assault fleet. Admiral Fang will not even notice it’s missing unless you’re planning to take on the Russians and Americans once you’ve knocked out the BrainTrust. Is that the plan?”

  Guang harrumphed.

  “Moreover, if you take the Renhai away from us, you’ll be leaving me and my archipelago completely defenseless. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous if the Filipinos grabbed all my ships while you had the Renhai gallivanting all over the ocean?”

  Guang gave that idea a vicious snort. “If they did, we’d turn their fleet and all their harbors into sunken piles of scrap.”

  “Are you so sure that the Americans won’t go back to supporting the Filipinos after the Alliance accomplishes its mission?”

  Guang harrumphed again.

  Fan allowed her voice to go sultry. “It’s just one ship, Guang.”

  She knew she had him when he paused.

  Guang sighed audibly. “Very well.” His voice grew stern. “But I want Captain Chunlan to come over there and take over from that white woman.”

  Uh-oh. “Guang, that is entirely unnecessary. We’ve talked about this. I have things completely under control here.”

  Guang growled. “I swear by our ancestors, Fan, you’re going to put Captain Chunlan of the Renhai in charge of the Fuxing fleet, and that’s final!”


  Fan paused. “Guang, I can see why you’d think that was a good idea, but…” She rambled for a while as she formulated a plan to circumvent Guang’s demands. Once she had a reasonably coherent if incomplete idea, she acquiesced. “But I can see why you’d want the captain here, given the chaos of the situation.” She continued glibly, “After all, we’d lose a serious asset if Lenora decided to take some ships across the ocean in defense of our sister ships.”

  “Glad you finally see it my way.” He paused. “Now, can we talk about us for a minute before I get back to work on the war?”

  Uh-oh again. What work could Guang have to do for the war? It seemed pretty straightforward to her—Admiral Fang would take China’s lone nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and a dozen newer cruisers similar to the Renhai, along with some ancillary ships, and pummel the BrainTrust with anti-ship missiles. For anyone who didn’t understand the devious nature of the BrainTrusters, it seemed foolproof.

  Instead of cutting Guang off, Fan chatted with him at length, every once in a while probing to see if she could get more info.

  But Guang was cagey, and for the first time in years, he was charming. She’d forgotten how much she had liked him in the old days when he was charming. Perhaps when this was all over, she’d reward him; go to Beijing and have dinner with him after all.

  If nothing else, dinner would get her close enough to shoot him if she concluded that was the only thing to do.

  Captain Levinsky, commander of an Israeli Super Dvora Mk-III patrol boat, was the first Israeli officer to learn they were being invaded.

  His radarman shouted, “Captain! There’s a fleet of ships heading our way!”

  The captain called for battle stations, then asked for details. The radarman answered, “It’s hard to tell much from here. There are at least a dozen ships, and they seem to be about the same size as the Aceso II.”

  The captain blinked. “Mini-isle ships?”

  The radarman remained cautious. “It would appear so.”

  Levinsky turned to his pilot. “Let’s go see who they are. Full speed. Make me proud.” As the helm let her rip to the full fifty knots of which she was capable, he turned to the radio operator. “Hail them.”

  Soon enough, a familiar voice came over the speakers. “Captain Levinsky, is that you perchance?” Diab sounded hesitant.

  For a brief moment, Levinsky was forced into a series of flashbacks. First there had been his encounter with Diab when the Palestinian took his cobbled-together caricature of an isle ship into the water, loaded with Palestinians who wanted above all to escape the fighting and join the Prometheus fleet. Levinsky had been lampooned more than once for letting them go rather than sending them back and sinking the ship.

  When Khalid had covered the world with the Sky Rubola, Israel had been hammered. It had looked like Haifa and Tel Aviv would both suffer horrific casualties, despite the BrainTrust’s successful interception of the missiles.

  Then a lone ship had appeared on Levinsky’s radar. It was the Aceso II, a pharmaceutical manufacturing ship loaded with unique BrainTrust tech and prepped with the instructions for producing the Sky Rubola cure. The Aceso II had been built and sent by Diab to save both the Palestinians and the Israelis, although since Israel had been hit so hard, the first priority had been Levinsky’s country’s needs.

  Levinsky continued to be astonished by how one little act of mercy could pay such enormous dividends. Particularly when the mercy had been granted mostly because Levinsky figured the Palestinians would all drown trying to get to the Prometheus archipelago in the first place.

  And now Diab was here with a fleet. Levinsky needed to understand. “Diab, what are you doing here? What are all these ships?”

  “Captain, I’m delighted to hear your voice again.”

  Levinsky felt rising frustration since Diab hadn’t answered his question. “Diab, I can’t let you take a whole fleet through here. The ferries bringing you more refugees have been running like clockwork, haven’t they?”

  Diab’s voice filled with worry. “The ferries are fine, but I need your help. As you surely know, the Alliance for the Protection of the Seas is going to try to destroy the BrainTrust.”

  Levinsky almost laughed at Diab’s description of it as “trying to destroy the BrainTrust.” The BrainTrust, as nearly as he could tell, didn’t stand a chance.

  A big wave hit Levinsky’s ship as it plowed through the water, almost knocking him to the deck. He refocused on Diab. “What’s that got to do with your fleet here?”

  “Ciara—the Prometheus fleet Mission Commander—told me she didn’t think she could defend our archipelago successfully. She figured she’d have her hands full just defending her own ships. And as you might guess, our ships can’t take anything like the kind of pounding the huge Prometheus isle ships can take, and we don’t have so much as a pistol to shoot back with. Though—” Diab’s voice turned exasperated. “—many of the teenagers are working the 3D printers and running off machine guns, just in case.”

  Levinsky started to laugh, then stopped abruptly. Palestinians with machine guns could never be considered amusing, even if they were Prometheus residents intent on building a new future rather than battling over old history. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.”

  At that moment, the radar operator broke in on the conversation. “More contacts to the north, Captain.” After a pause, he continued, “Five Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates.” He looked up at Levinsky. “It looks like everything the Russians have from the Black Sea.”

  Admiral Yahontov, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, listened to his officers’ description of the disposition of enemy forces. “So, you think this is the entire New Medina fleet we have in front of us?”

  His intel officer was cautious, like all blasted intel people. “Quite possibly. There might be a couple strays between here and the Prometheus fleet, but this is the main bulk of the ships.”

  Yahontov’s eyes gleamed with malevolent eagerness. “Excellent! We shall claim first blood!”

  One of his staff officers asked, “Are you sure we should take the time? Those Palestinians are not exactly part of the BrainTrust.”

  Yahontov waved the objection aside. “But they are surely allies. And like the BrainTrust, they are violators of the oceanic ecosystems we’ve sworn to protect. These are the very kinds of ships the Alliance has been created to destroy. Wiping them out easily fits our rules of engagement.”

  With no more objections, Yahontov described the battle plan. “Move in until we have visual contact. There’s much to be learned about destroying isle ships, so I need to be able to watch them as they die. In the meantime, develop firing solutions for every ship in that fleet. I want this engagement to last no more than five minutes, and I want to see every ship in that fleet broken in at least two parts before it’s over.”

  Fan watched as Captain Chunlan watched a handful of Marines step from his RHIB onto the dock of the Taixue. He then boarded the isle ship with bemusement. “Should I demand the surrender of the Fuxing fleet?” He waved a hand at his men. “I seem a little understaffed to defeat a legion of enemies.” He had the same number of troops this time as he had had the last time he’d been ordered to invade the Fuxing fleet. He’d realized he couldn’t win then, and in the intervening years, the number of ships in the archipelago had tripled.

  Fan’s laughter had a brittle, glass-like edge. “No invasion on your part or surrender on ours is necessary, Captain. I’m already in charge here. Rather, I turn the fleet over to you for supervision while I attend to more strategic matters.” And while Lenora attends to other matters she refuses to tell me about, she thought. Just as well, since whatever she’s doing will keep her out of sight of the captain here. That would make for quite the explosion. Lenora had agreed to this “takeover.” Indeed, she had designed some of its key features, but Fan doubted she would be able to control her rage if Chunlan’s presence were thrust in her face, even though Lenora and Chunlan g
ot along quite well when they held their monthly meeting.

  Chunlan saluted. “I accept this supervisory role, as you wish.” A look of mild irritation passed over his face. “Speaking of strategic matters, I understand that you personally had me and my ship removed from the Alliance fleet.”

  Fan raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

  Chunlan turned very rigid and would not look her in the eyes. “I hesitate to point out that being denied a place in the largest naval campaign China has ever conducted is a black mark on my record. Has my service been unsatisfactory in some way? Is there some action I might perform that would persuade you to allow me to join them? At full speed, it is not too late for me to catch up and participate.”

  Fan shook her head. She paused to decide whether to speak with the cold power of command or the warmth of a friend with whom the captain had dined once a month for several years now.

  In the end, she was not a military person, and although she was a member of the Standing Committee, she was also a student of Lenora Thornhill. She spoke with soft warmth. “My friend, my main motivation, as you have apparently guessed, was not to ensure you could help defend us against the Filipinos, but I have not harmed you. Quite the opposite. I have kept you here to ensure your promotion.”

  Chunlan blinked at her.

  “Let’s be clear. The BrainTrust is going to obliterate our fleet.” When Chunlan started to object, Fan raised a hand to silence him. “I don’t know how they’ll do it—do you think they’d tell me, of all people?—but rest assured, they will.”

  Fan glared into the captain’s eyes. “After the fleet sinks, you’ll have the most powerful surviving warship in China. Your cruiser will become the center around which the future navy of China will be built.” She chuckled. “And barring some lunacy from my ex-boyfriend, you’ll have no choice but to become the admiral in charge of that fleet.”